The Bullet That Killed Tomás Garcia

By: 
Monti Aguirre
Tomás Garcia
Tomás Garcia
By Colectivo Ocote

Drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption and institutional dysfunction are some of the major causes of the high rate of violence in Honduras. The National Commission for Human Rights has calculated that there is a violent death every 74 minutes in this small nation of about eight million people. It has the highest murder rate in the world per capita.

But the bullet that killed Tomás Garcia came from an army officer, and was intended for killing the people who oppose construction of the Agua Zarca Dam in Honduras. Tomás – a Lenca indigenous leader active on local and national indigenous councils, as well as the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) – was killed while walking with his son and many other community members to continue the blockade of the project construction site. The army has been protecting the interests of Honduran dam owner Desarrollo Energético Sociedad Anónima (DESA) and Chinese dam builder Sinohydro – the largest dam builder in the world – not the interests and rights of citizens of the communities who would suffer the effects of the dam. Sinohydro is expected to follow its own safeguard policies, including respecting the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples. But those policies rarely seem to leave the paper.

Resistance to the Agua Zarca Dam
Resistance to the Agua Zarca Dam
Copinh

Lenca communities impacted by the 25-MW-dam’s construction have been blocking the access roads to the dam’s facilities since April 1, 2013.  But the story starts in September 2010, when 41 hydrolectric dam concessions were granted – by the regime that ousted President Manual Zelaya Rosales – without any consultations with the people who would lose their lands, culture and as we now see, their lives.

Included in these concessions were four dams planned on the Gualcarque River, including the 20-meter-tall Agua Zarca Dam, which is currently under construction. COPINH says the project would have negative environmental impacts, privatize the Gualcarque River and its tributaries for over 20 years, destroy cultural heritage, cause economic displacement, and affect the water rights of local indigenous populations.

Despite these impacts, the property rights of affected communities have been ignored and their lands illegally expropriated. The concession holders have not obtained legal rights to use the lands they would flood or impact. “The Lenca communities of the Rio Blanco region in the municipality of Intibuca who would be impacted by the Agua Zarca Dam have a communal land title from 1911 to document their already existing rights in this region. The land was given to their ancestors after years of unpaid, essentially forced labor,” reported Rights Action. “However, as so often happens, the communities suspect that the mayor has made illegal sales of portions of the land, as this is the only way they can explain the claims by DESA to hold title to the area where construction of the Agua Zarca Dam has begun.” DESA has refused to share the documentation for the land rights they claim to possess. 

COPINH reports that soldiers from the 1st Battalion of Engineers are assisting in the construction of the dam, and have threatened the life of community leaders who oppose the dam. “In 2010 the community of Zacapa came to an agreement with DESA to allow the access road to be built in exchange for extensive infrastructure construction in the region, housing construction, school and clinic construction, etc. However the promised infrastructure was never built, not even a fraction of what had been promised, thus the communities in Zacapa consider the agreement to be void,” reported Rights Action.

Tomás with his community next to the Gualcarque River
Tomás with his community next to the Gualcarque River
By Colectivo Ocote

The access road to the site of the Agua Zarca Dam was constructed in 2011 despite the expressed opposition of the communities and no expropriation process.

During the first eviction from the dam-site blockade on April 7, police referenced the evictions in the Aguan region where at least 99 people associated with land rights movements in conflict with the World Bank- and Inter-American Development Bank-funded palm oil companies have been killed by apparent death squads, reportedly associated with private security guards, police and military. Armed guards have moved into the camp for workers at the Agua Zarca Dam site, and fire guns at night to intimidate the neighboring communities, according to Rights Action.

The bullet that killed Tomás Garcia was shot by one soldier, but the government institutions, companies and financiers behind the Agua Zarca Dam must also be held accountable for this horrific event.

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Date: 
Friday, July 19, 2013